Week 1 Recap

Olentangy 41, Canal Winchester 6

Request to buy this photoMike Munden | For THE DISPATCHCanal Winchester’s Lamont Martin tries to get to Olentangy quarterback Noah Durst. Durst completed 12 of 17 passes for 161 yards, threw for a touchdown and ran for a score in his first start.

Olentangy, playing its first game under new coach Mark Solis, ran 92 plays. Canal Winchester, already reeling after senior quarterback Zach Bontempo suffered a fractured collarbone in the first quarter, simply couldn’t keep up and dropped a nonconference opener to visiting Olentangy 41-6.

“In an average high-school game you might get 60 or 65 snaps,” Solis said. “But that’s what we want to do. We want to go, go, go. It just really gives people problems, and if we can get high-school kids to play at that speed it really gives us a chance to win a lot of football games.”& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; lt; /p>

It was a pace that left the Indians, many of whom were playing both ways, with heaving shoulders and cramping muscles.

Once Olentangy quarterback Noah Durst settled into his first varsity start, the rout was on. Durst capped the first half with a 5-yard touchdown plunge that gave Olentangy a 22-6 lead.

The Braves extended it to 28-6 when Anthony Golden scored for a second time in the third quarter, and Durst iced it with a shovel pass to Hunter Hayden that sprang Hayden for a 74-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter.

It was a convincing win, yet Canal Winchester coach Shawn Hinkle said the Indians will rebound. They did so last year, running the table after a 1-2 start and advancing to the second round of the Division II playoffs.

“That’s exactly what we told the kids (after the game),” Hinkle said. “We’ve dug ourselves out of the hole before, and we fully plan to do it again. This isn’t the end of the world by any stretch.”

The game was the first for Canal Winchester as a member of the Ohio Capital Conference after a long and successful run in the Mid-State League.

Olentangy, playoff qualifiers in four of the final eight seasons of the 24-year tenure of former coach Ed Terwilliger, appears primed for another postseason.

“We settled in and got it going,” said Durst, who completed 12 of 17 passes for 161 yards. “We want to get off as many plays, as many points and as many yards as we can. This offense, it’s really a lot of fun.”

The defense left Solis smiling, as well. Olentangy limited the Indians to a single first down in their first four possessions, though it was Canal Winchester that scored the game’s first points.

Khari Golden fumbled the opening kickoff, but William Totten scored his team’s lone touchdown on the next play when he intercepted Durst at the goal line and returned the pick 100 yards.

Totten, an inexperienced quarterback, replaced Bontempo in the first quarter. He completed 4 of 9 passes for 48 yards and rushed for 57 more on 14 carries.

Bontempo is expected to miss the remainder of the season.

Hayden rushed for 115 yards on 11 carries and caught two passes for 79 yards for Olentangy.